Do you offer a mobile application to your customers? Do you want to maximise reach, generate as many downloads as possible and acquire new, active users? Find out where to start, what to watch out for and what costs to prepare for.
Integrate your application with a measurement system
Access to reliable and extensive statistics is the basis for the proper development of a mobile application. Well-known Firebase or Google Play Console may not suffice here. It is worth integrating your application with one of the analytical measurement tools designed for mobile applications, also known as MMP (Mobile Measurement Platforms).
These tools allow for a very precise study of user activity. Thanks to them, we are able to look at the statistics relating to particular actions performed in the application. We can continuously monitor not only the number of installations or uninstallations, but also find out how many new users have registered in our shopping club, how many of them actively use the application, or how many new purchases have been made through it today. These are only examples of actions relating mainly to the shopping application. In other cases, individual events can be defined according to the needs and objectives to be achieved by the application. Everything depends on the specifics of a particular application. These systems are also necessary for evaluating the effectiveness of your partners implementing marketing activities. Paid traffic is burdened with a high risk of generating applications of very low quality. Thanks to advanced tools you can protect your application and budget against fraud.
Based on our previous experience and that of our clients, we recommend Appsflyer or Adjust.
Choose your billing model
After creating and launching an app, the most important thing is its distribution. Both the natural one, which depends on factors such as brand awareness, functionality of the application and its uniqueness, as well as user ratings. In order to increase the range of downloads, a promotional campaign becomes helpful. In this case, it is important to choose an appropriate settlement model and, using the above-mentioned tools, analyse and optimise the effects of the activities of our marketing partners and channels for generating paid installations. The most popular model is CPI (Cost per Install), which guarantees a fixed cost for new installations. Here, the advertiser pays for the actual effect and the publishers receive a commission for each registered and confirmed installation. For this reason, the entity issuing the banner ad is forced to increase its efforts and find a well converting source, matching the right target group, preferably converting.
CPI not always the best solution
The cost per install is just the beginning of the fun. Advertisers don’t care about the sheer number of app installs, what’s important is their quality and user engagement. This is why the CPA (Cost per Action) model is becoming a desirable settlement model, allowing publishers to settle for subsequent, one could say “deeper”, or requiring greater involvement of the mobile app user. Advertisers can decide for themselves what they care most about. It may be registering in a shopping club, browsing specific content (e.g. product offers), sending a CV via the app (in the case of job aggregators) or buying additional paid services.
Interestingly, some performance agencies (e.g. Circlewise) offer the possibility to pay for orders made through the app, which is what all e-commerce brands care about most. CPA rates can be very different. The cost of registration is usually twice as high as the cost of installation. It is worth mentioning that CPO in the application will be higher than the one we are used to in case of desktop. Because the advertiser gains not only a registration, a single purchase, but a new user with whom he can communicate in his own media (including the application), which significantly saves the marketing budget. Additionally, as I mentioned, the rates depend on a whole range of factors and require individual pricing.
Settling for subsequent events performed by users after installing the application guarantees better quality of the generated installations, and the Advertiser’s budget allocated to the promotion of the application is more secure.
